Tag: productivity

Technology – it changes ALL the time. Something we love and yet it can be, at times, completely frustrating. Like take the recent release of iOS 7. The new look and feel was different and the “old” way of doing some tasks, like closing programs or locking the screen orientation, was gone and not easily found. Hence this post – listing five essential operating system built-ins that will help you use the iPad more practically.

This video (6:19 min) reviews: the notification center, spotlight search, the control center, how to close apps that are already open (to extend your battery life), and how to resize text for our aging eyes. These five features of the new operating system will help you get on to other tasks quickly and easily.

Or, here are the features quickly explained:

1) To access the Notification Center, do a one finger swipe from the very top of your iPad down your screen. This will “pull” down a new screen, listing upcoming appointments, the weather, and app notifications.

To close the Notification Center, push up from the bottom of the notification screen with one finger.

2) To access the Spotlight Search, do a one finger swipe near the top of your iPad screen quickly down halfway. Your cursor will be flashing in your searching bar. As you type, the operating system will quickly scan your mail, notes, reminders, and music and present related items in a list below.

To close the Spotlight Search, tap once on the background image of your iPad.

3) To quickly access your music playback controls, volume, and other key features, open the Control Center.

To open the Control Center, using one finger, swipe from the bottom of the iPad screen quickly halfway up the screen. In the gray rectangular box that appears, you will find your music playback buttons on the left, and the volume slider below that. In the middle, you will see icons for Airplane Mode, Wifi, Bluetooth, and Screen Orientation Lock (very useful!). To the right, you may see icons to launch your clock and camera. And below that, in the right hand corner, is the brightness slider, in case you need to adjust the brightness.

4) To see which apps are running in the background, do a four finger swipe quickly upwards. Then with one finger, swipe from right to left to horizontally scroll through everything that is open.

To close any app, “flick” the app icon upwards and off the screen. By “flick”, I mean tap and swipe quickly upwards in an off the screen motion.

To switch between open apps, do the four finger swipe upwards and scroll to the app you want to go to. Tap in the middle of that app with one finger to maximize that screen.

5) To resize text, from your Home Screen, tap on Settings. Tap General from the left window. Tap Text Size from the middle of that screen (approx. 5th option from the top). Using the slider, adjust the text size smaller or larger.

Remember to review the settings for the Notification Center and the Control Center. From your Home Screen, go to Settings and you’ll see these features listed near the top on the left hand side.

The versatility of a tablet device lends itself to many types of collaboration, including, yes, teaching yoga. It’s so easy to access lesson plans, play custom music sets, and help explain anatomy and postures, just to name a few practical uses.

So I thought I’d use today’s post to share a couple of apps that I use for teaching yoga and for personal use. And perhaps you have even more ideas to share with me? That’d be great.

Disclaimer: the apps featured here were from the Canadian Apple iStore so they may not be available in other countries. Prices may fluctuate (I see prices have already increased from what I had paid many moons ago).

There are many timer apps available. This one offers a selection of tones to start or end your practice with, or even set an interval bell. It’s so easy to use! And I really like how the developer has built-in a link to others who are meditating at the same time that you are. Another way to feel connected from your mat.

For music used to accompany yoga sets, I use iTunes. I create a custom playlist and transfer the playlist to the iPad.

For my lesson plans, I use Excel on the Mac (on my laptop) to create the curriculum. Then I store that file in Dropbox and make that file accessible for offline access on my iPad (read this earlier post if you want more information on that). That way I have access to my curriculum on my iPad, if I need it, during class.

Learning about human anatomy has been fun and enhanced with anatomy apps too. There are so many but here’s one I use regularly:

Getting yourself organized electronically also means that you will need a system to manage your passwords. And by that I don’t mean writing down your passwords on paper or in a book (sorry).

Do your research and find a password management program that suits your needs. There are many password management programs available, so think about the type of data you want to keep track of and where you feel comfortable storing it (on your computer vs on the cloud).

For the last 3 yrs I’ve used 1Password produced by AgileBits, available on all platforms (disclaimer: I have no affiliation with AgileBits other than I am a very satisfied customer to date). It’s a Canadian product, reliable, and easy to use. At the time of this posting, 1Password is available on a trial basis for 30 days. The full version costs $49.99 Cdn.

I decided to buy a password management program that installed on my computer and one that allowed me to synchronize the encrypted data file via the cloud. That way I don’t need to be online to access my account information AND I can have my various devices plugged into the same information. I needed to store usernames, passwords, and general notes about a respective account.

Here’s how 1Password works for me. 1Password stores my account information in an encrypted vault. All I have to remember is literally one password to open the vault and then voila, all of my usernames and passwords are alphabetically accessible. The account information is stored in a data file, known as a keychain. I asked 1Password to store the keychain in my Dropbox folder so that only one version of the encrypted keychain is maintained.

1Password does not fill in the login information for you when you visit a site. Rather you have to click on a toolbar from your browser to log in. I love that. 1Password also creates super strong passwords for me on the go. I love that too.

Here’s a video to explain what I mean (6:29).

Let me know what you use to manage your passwords and other account information.

Technology is great when it works, but when it starts to not do what it’s supposed to, it’s easy to become frustrated. Like when you push your Home button on your iPad and nothing happens. What?! That Home button is essential in using the iPad. Don’t despair, there is a great workaround already built into the operating system. Go into your settings and turn on assistive touch. Here’s a quick video (2:01 min) to explain.

Steps:

Tap Settings.

Tap General in the left hand pane.

In the right hand window, scroll down the list of options. Tap on Accessibility.

In the right hand window, tap on Assistive Touch.

Slide the slider to the ON position. A white button will appear on your screen. Tap on the white button to bring up a list of options. Tap HOME to mirror the functionality of the Home button.

To move the placement of the white button on your screen, tap and hold the white button, and then move your finger to a new screen location. To turn off the white button, go into your Settings, tap General, tap on Accessibility, tap on Assistive Touch, and turn the slider to the OFF position.

A client of mine, Margaret, recently acquired an iPad. After using the iPad camera, she realized that all of her magazine articles that she had clipped out over the past few months could be digitized! Eureka! And her question to me was: is using the camera the best option for this need?

I challenged her with a question as my answer. “Sure, that’s great to take a picture of the information you want. The photo will be stored within the camera roll on your iPad. Now how will you ensure that this new photo, or new electronic file, is organized in your own filing system and THEN that this file is then synced across all of your devices?” There was a pause at the other end of our Skype session.

Let’s review Margaret’s computing options for her job and personal needs. Margaret has a 4 yr old iMac, a 3 yr old Macbook, a 1 yr old iPhone, and an iPad3 that she primarily uses for personal correspondence and documents. At work she has a PC desktop for her teaching responsibilities. If Margaret is not careful in how she sets up her e-filing system, she will run the risk of creating multiple file versions and soon she will feel overwhelmed when she realizes – WHERE did I put that file and WHICH one is the one I need?! So by asking Margaret this question, Margaret quickly realized that there must be a better solution.

YES! Take Margaret’s idea one step further – use the iPad as a portable scanner and store that new file within a cloud-based synced folder. For Margaret that means we’ll make sure the file is stored within one of her Dropbox folders that is automatically synced across her devices.

So we need an app that optimizes scanning functionality and one that can be linked to an existing cloud account. There are lots of scanning apps to choose from – some free, some fee-based. Having used ScannerPro by Readdle for many months now, I highly recommend the $6.99 USD purchase price (at time of posting, and I have no affiliation other than I’m a highly satisfied customer). ScannerPro lets you share the new file by email, or by uploading to Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, or another WebDAV-enabled online storage solution.

Here’s a video on how to use ScannerPro to scan a magazine article and save it in Dropbox (4:39 min) .

For those of you who like the steps documented:

1. Choose the information you want to scan.

2. Lay that information as flat as possible and try to position it in the best possible light.

3. Open ScannerPro.

4. Position the camera over the information you want to capture. Avoid shadows as much as possible and do your best to hold the iPad steady.

5. Take the picture by tapping the Camera icon.

6. Adjust the borders (tap and drag each corner until you have surrounded the information you want to retain).

7. Tap Done.

8. Tap the Sharing icon at the top right of the screen.

9. Tap “Open in…”, and choose Dropbox.

10. Log in to Dropbox if asked for a passcode (depending on your settings).

11. Name the file and select the folder location.

12. Tap Done.

Think of everything that you can do with a portable scanner – scan receipts and invoices, scan handwritten notes and sketches, scan magazine articles, etc. For me at this time, ScannerPro is easy and reliable to use and it’s my go to app many times a week.

When you have organized your files in a way that makes sense to you and you’ve figured the best way to synchronize your files across devices so that you only work from one version of each file, you will find that feeling of being organized so addictive in a good way! Now you’ll find that your contacts will start to ask you – can you please share that file with me?

The steps to share a file from your iPad are slightly different from the way you would share a document from your Mac or PC. My preference is to email a file link to the recipient directly. Dropbox will generate the file link for you. Here’s a video (4:54 min) to explain.

Or here’s the information written out for you.

Before you can follow the steps, I’m assuming the following items are in place:

You have your own Dropbox account – remember, it’s free and when you sign up you first receive 2GB (at the time of writing this post) of cloud-based storage in your own secure account.

You are connected to the Internet on your iPad.

You have downloaded, installed, and set up the Dropbox app on your iPad. If not, go to the App Store and do this before proceeding.

You have placed your source documents within the Dropbox folder that you want to synchronize across devices.

Steps to share a file using Dropbox from your iPad via email:

1) On your iPad, open the Dropbox application (enter in a passcode if you have configured a passcode to access your files).

2) Open the file you want to share

3) Tap the “Share” icon

4) Select the option called “Email”.

5) Compose a new email to your contact and send off the email.

Your recipient will have a choice to download the file directly to the machine that they are using when they receive your email or to save the file to their Dropbox account.